Floods are responsible for severe damage to hundreds of public and private properties every year, causing millions of dollars in economical damage. Floods also displace a vast number of people and threaten lives.
The most common method of flood control is to have hundreds of people fill and deploy thousands of sandbags. A problem with this method is that it requires untold hours of labor and often the time required for erecting an effective flood barrier is too long and the floods inevitably take over. A further problem with sandbag barriers is that they leak.
Yet another problem with sandbag barriers is the labor intensive task of removing them after the flood has receded and disposing them in dump sites. Sandbags are not recyclable and pose environmental pollution since present plastic thread woven bags used for sandbags will last for years in the dump sites.
In some instances flood barrier systems consisting of several individual flood barrier units located side by side in horizontal alignment have been used instead of sandbags. However, a problem with such systems is that the individual flood barriers require heavy machinery to transport and deploy them at flood sites. If the flood site consists of rough ground, most transportation vehicles cannot even reach the deployment site. Since existing flood barrier units are not man-portable, their usefulness is reduced.
Where floods are severe, higher flood barrier banks must be erected. A problem with existing flood barrier systems is that higher flood barrier banks require higher individual flood barrier units. For example, a nine foot high flood barrier bank requires individual flood barrier units nine foot high. Such immense flood barrier units are very difficult to transport and deploy.
A further problem with existing flood barrier systems is that flood barrier units of several different heights must be kept in stock, each barrier height corresponding to a flood barrier bank of that height as necessitated by the severity of flood conditions.
Another problem with existing flood barrier systems is their non-adaptability to worsening flood conditions. A flood barrier bank of a certain height deployed to obstruct floods of certain strength can be quickly overflowed if flood water levels rise. Since time is of the essence, building a higher flood barrier bank behind an overflowed flood barrier bank is impractical.
Yet a further problem with existing flood barrier systems is leakage. Current methods of closing the gaps between adjacent flood barrier units are ineffectual, leading to leakage of flood waters and resulting property damage. The leakage problem is made worse where adjacent flood barrier units are misaligned due to ground conditions, or where the flood barrier bank turns a corner.
Thus there is a need for a flood barrier system which is portable, reusable, quickly deployable. There is also a need for such a system to allow for erecting barriers in layers to meet the ultimate flood height.